Pierogi Platter

I recently discovered Trader Joe’s Chicken & Mushroom Pelmeni, which are basically pierogi. I decided to turn them into an actual meal simply by punching up the flavors that already existed in the little dumplings themselves.

First, start sauteing one sliced onion til it’s pretty much caramelized. This can take 30 minutes, which is more than enough time to prepare everything else in this dish. Like way more. Start caramelizing and go watch a lil tv if you’d like. First, brown ground turkey with salt, paprika, and garlic powder and set aside. Next, boil the pierogi in salted water for 4 minutes (until they float). When they’re done, you can eat them like that or quickly pan fry them for slightly crispy sides (should only take a minute or two per side). I tried it both ways and both tasted great. Plate the dish by topping the chicken and dumplings with sour cream, the onions, and dill.

Note: I made this a meat-heavy dish for two reasons:

I thought the filling of the dumplings might be lots of filler and not a ton of meat – my beau needs to really feel like he had a protein at supper. (Turns out they managed to stuff a ton of very meaty filling in these dumplings so the extra meat may be unnecessary, but I’m not mad at it.)

I wanted to recreate my favorite meal at one of my favorite restaurants, Veselka, where I always get the meat platter, which includes pierogi and stuffed cabbage. Meat on meat and it’s delish.

While I didn’t make the pierogi from scratch, this is a good first step towards mastering dishes from my beau’s Czechoslovakian culture. Wife points: secured.